Life in general was hell on relationships, Anna thought tiredly. She wished Paul was there, wished she was in Natchez. How hard would it be? She could give up rangering – all it seemed to get her was wrecked knee joints and scars – and become a Mississippi housewife. Paul was an Episcopal priest when he wasn’t being the sheriff of Adams County. Anna could be a church lady. She liked hats. Anyway, she liked her NPS Stetson well enough. If she believed in God, it would be doable.
Damn.
There was always a catch.
Jonah excused himself to check on the weather. Adam and Robin left shortly thereafter. Bob went out to bring firewood and stack it near the door. Finally there was room to move. Anna roused herself to a little housekeeping, the only kind she was much good at: setting up camp. She began efficiently storing their mountains of gear. In summer, extraneous items could be cached out of doors. In January, anything they wanted the use of, including the wolf traps, had to be kept inside the cabin. The traps had been designed for all weathers. It wouldn’t have hurt their form or function to be tossed out in the snow, but working with them would be harder if the metal was cold enough to burn skin.
“Can I do anything to help?” Katherine asked.
Anna had forgotten she was there. “Can you even move after the last two days?” she asked.
Katherine laughed and shook her head. “Surely there’s something I can do.”
“There’s not room to do it,” Anna said. She almost added “How are you doing? Are you holding up?” but caught herself in time. Concern and condescension were hard to tell apart, and Katherine’s brain was probably as tired as her body. Instead she said: “We won’t have to pack like this again. We couldn’t count on the weather breaking, so we hauled the traps in. If the weather’s too bad for Jonah to pick us up, we’ll leave them here.” She shot a malevolent glance at the internal-frame pack hanging on the wall at the foot of the bunks. “I doubt if I could do it again. That pack nearly killed me.”
She’d said it to make Katherine feel better, but it might be true. She might not be able to take that kind of weight again for a while. The previous season, when she’d been on a twenty-one-day fire assignment in the mountains east of Boise, Idaho, she’d noticed that the difference between the old firefighters and the young ones wasn’t in strength or endurance. It was in recovery time. The old guys, the firefighters over forty, were as strong as the kids. She and the others could lift and run and dig with the best of them. But they wore down. The kids were stronger after three weeks of hard physical labor. The grown-ups were just bone tired.
With much stomping, Jonah opened the door and leaned in. “Seen Adam?” he asked. “Weather’s souring. We’ve got to roll.”
“I thought he was with you,” Anna said.
“He’s with Robin,” Jonah replied, sounding vaguely ominous. Anna couldn’t tell if he was jealous or just worried about getting the supercub up before they got weathered in.
Six bodies crammed in the tiny cabin overnight.
“I’ll help you look,” she said, grabbed up her parka and shoved her feet in her boots. She didn’t bother with balaclava and mittens. She had no intention of being out that long.
The light had dimmed from its paltry glory. A tidal wave of gray was rolling toward shore from the northwest. Above it was the clear silver-blue sky, but that was going to change. Wind was driving the clouds; they would have snow.
“Adam!” Jonah yelled.
Anna walked toward the outhouse. Bob met her carrying an armload of wood for the stove. “Have you seen Adam and Robin?” she demanded.
“He’s old enough to be her father,” he said.
Anna gave him a hard look. “So are you. Have you seen them?”
Before he could answer, the two missing persons emerged from behind the cabin. They had the excited air of lovers, sharing secret trysts. Or, more apt, a ragman and tinker, luring the lovely farm girl to sin and degradation. Adam’s affectation of a parka and ski pants worn and stained and patched with duct tape in half a dozen places leant his otherwise-honest-looking self a disreputable air.
“God dammit, Adam,” Jonah groused. “I’m taking off as soon as I get her fired up. Either you’re buckled in or you’re staying here.” The pilot strode off toward the lake and his lady. Adam started after him.
“Your pack,” Anna called. She reached inside the cabin door and snatched up the maintenance man’s day pack. “Jesus!” she exclaimed as the weight hit her sore shoulders. “What have you got in here anyway?”
“Give that to me,” he demanded harshly.
Wordlessly, Anna handed it over.
“Books,” he said and smiled sheepishly. “We’ll make another run with goodies if we can,” he said. “Hang in there.”
With those reassuring words, he started down the slight grade. The supercub’s engine purred to life, and he broke into a run, his long legs eating up the distance. Feeling abandoned in an arctic wilderness, Anna watched till he climbed through the clamshell doors.
Adam was up to something. Maybe that something was a twenty-four-year-old biotech. Whatever it was, it bore watching.
10
Despite the tight quarters and the snapping and snarling of animals and humans over the past twenty-four hours, once Adam and Jonah were gone Anna, Katherine, Robin and even Bob began to enjoy one another’s company. A night of shared danger – or perceived danger – a hard hike well done, and the reward of heat and food at the end, bonded them as nights in a bunkhouse could never do.
Adding to the general sense of well-being was what Anna’s District Ranger in Mesa Verde had liked to call the idiot’s delight aspect of camping: after hitting oneself over the head with a two-by-four, it felt so good to stop.
Bob cooked. The big bearish man put on an apron left by a summer seasonal with a taste for frills and bows. Ruffled pinafore straps over his thick shoulders, he began cutting the onions Jonah had brought. His size dwarfed the two-burner stove, his hands made the knife look like a toy and the sash of the apron barely reached around him, but he looked more at ease than Anna had ever seen him. It was as if in a kitchen – even such a kitchen as the backcountry cabin afforded – he felt completely in control, full of confidence, the genuine kind that allows a man generosity of spirit because he needn’t constantly put others down or puff himself up to guarantee his place in the pecking order.
As he changed, Katherine changed. She let down her guard. If Bob’s armor was arrogance, Katherine’s was meekness. Without it hiding her like a translucent burka, she shined. Not a lot, not a shooting star, but she exhibited a sense of humor with a black streak Anna enjoyed. Almost, almost, if she squinted and tilted her head to one side, Anna could see what brought graduate student and professor into a relationship. There was no doubt in her mind that they were in a relationship – or had been – and it was more than merely academics.
By the time they turned out the hurricane lantern to sleep – Anna on the top bunk, Katherine on the bottom, Robin and Bob on the floor – Anna was feeling downright warm and fuzzy.
Maintained by coffee and a breakfast that didn’t ice up on the spoon, the camaraderie survived the morning.
Carrying four traps – forty pounds – Anna felt strong and ready as she shouldered her pack after breakfast. Bob offered to carry Katherine’s traps for her, but apparently Katherine felt the joy of not being crippled from the day before as well and insisted on taking her share.
The storm Jonah and the supercub fled the previous afternoon squatted on Malone Bay, settling slate-colored skirts in the hollows and down the hillsides. Three inches of snow had fallen during the night, and more whirled on a scouring wind that erased the track of the cub’s skis across the harbor ice and the footprints of the Winter Study team. In the isolated places of the world, nature still retained the power to erase human lives as easily as she did the prints of their shoes. The feeling gave Anna hope that mankind wouldn’t sound the earth’s death knell quite yet, that Mother Nature wouldn’t go quietly and she would take as many of the enemy with her as she could.